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Hour in bath each morning – how an MP begins work

Patrick Kidd

October 18 2017, 12:01am, The Times

Tim Loughton said: “One of the greatest causes of stress in the world was the invention of the shower”GARETH FULLER/PA

Some may say that politicians do little enough work as it is, with their summer recesses and non-sitting Fridays, but a conference in Westminster was told yesterday that the secret to better government lies in them doing even less.

One Tory backbencher advocates a long bath every day to cleanse the body and clear the mind. “I spend up to an hour in the bath every morning, just thinking about things,” Tim Loughton, MP for East Worthing & Shoreham, said. “One of the greatest causes of stress in the world was the invention of the shower.”

Whether it does much for domestic harmony depends on how many bathrooms you have — and Mr Loughton, 55, admitted that an hour of topping up the hot water was…